Koatanga wrote:Fox is a major TV network - the one that originally broadcast "The Simpsons" and "Firefly" - that tends to openly favour one political party over the other.

Do you not think other media outlets have their own biases that openly favour one political party over the other?

Absence of bias is impossible, but many news outlets at least try to balance things, making distinct separation between "hard news" and "editorial content". Fox News is unabashedly Republican with only a token few voices of opposition thrown in for excitement. They blur the line between news and editorial to the extent that it's not visible.

Koatanga wrote:The point I was making about Billy Joe Bob and Mr. Thornton III is that abuse of public campaign funding could be rampant. Theoretically you can't limit it to only two political parties, but only those two have a chance in hell of reaching the White House. But other "parties" could demand equal funding to compete. Some can be made up just to cash in on the advertising funds, Like Billy and T3. Billy sucks $10 million from the public kitty and pays it to his own video company, while Mr T3 spends his own money to get a 1000% return that he launders through his son.

Well it wouldn't be abuse if they can get the signatories to actually run, and no, it shouldn't be limited to 2 parties (thats no better than limiting it to 1 party from a democratic standpoint). The abuse wouldn't be rampant due to f.ex. airtime being limited and not being paid for by the candidate/campaign, but allotted by the networks themselves (would of course need some sort of oversight so the networks couldn't favor one candidate with no recourse) and payed by the "[Federal/State] Election Fund" directly.Also, its quite easy to put in safeguards in regards to the thought of examples; namely that you cannot use the campaign materials part of the "grant" to benefit relatives (et al)and that you cannot use newly created companies (for lack of a better descriptor), and that you have to provide bills that show you payed fair market value. Also it would be easy to simply not dole out all teh grant at once, but have it like an account you could tap in to by providing a bill - if every candidate would have to do it that way the actors of the market for campaign materials, would have a federal/state guarantee for their money, so no reason to not simply bill and send it off for payment.

are their slogans, and it's anything but. One of the their on air personalities actually RUNS a billion dollar Super PAC Republican Party Advertising conglomerate. When MIttens lost in November, his on air melt down was HISTORIC

The biggest theory, is that Fox uses Fox news to attone for some of the terrible things that they do. Personally, I think they realized that sensationalism, and conservatism have a big enough following in the US that they have canned it, put it on the news, and developed a rampant, cult following. If you know someone who "likes" Fox News, they will defend the channel with a fervor. It's weird.

Fascinating. The talk of finance reform and random hyperventilating reminded me of an article I read a number of years ago breaking down journalist campaign donations by party. Spoiler: they all trend towards one spectrum -- even those at Fox, oddly enough -- although I'm sure some people will just argue it's because the evil folks at Fox are just better at being sneaky bastards.

It's interesting how some people are so passionate about Fox and don't understand how other people can feel the mirror image about other news outlets, just because the station says things they agree with. Idealogues are interesting, if not particularly productive to have conversations with.

And only a minority of media starts with party loyalties and then use that to set their policies, mostly media that is outright owned by the party in question. The more normal state of affairs is for the newspaper or TV channel to have a set of institutional ethics and then support the parties who line up with that.

Fox is outright owned by the party in question? MSNBC is outright owned by the party in question? CNN? NBC? NYT? Can Fox's behaviour be explained by adhering to their set of institutional ethics? Can MSNBCs? NYT? How about Huffpo? Should a rational person view anything sourced by X with as much skepticism as something sourced by Fox?

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KysenMurrin wrote:There's a difference between clear partisan bias, and bias combined with misrepresentation of facts.

Would you argue Fox is the only outlet guilty of the second, and all other outlets are pure and pristine? Or is it a question of degree?

For me, it's a matter of degree. Most media has a bias. It's evident if you watch it.

But for Fox, not only do they have a bias, they actually work towards alienating those who don't fit their viewing demographic.

All while touting Fair and Balanced, and We Report, you decide.

I'm reminded of a time when Fox News went on a warpath, because the NEA classified Video Games as Art. They brought on a Video Game Expert (I believe it was a developer) to discuss the topic, and then went with the Call Of Duty angle. There was no talk about other games that aren't Call of Duty, that was their angle. The bloody mindless violence of Call of Duty being considered art.

I never said that. I said Fox acts like it's owned by the republican party. Other media don't (again, except MSNBC, which is a reaction to Fox).

Journalists may be left-leaning, although it's more like "left-leaning" as in they actually pay attention to the facts in a lot of cases. Media owners are smart people who know where their bread are buttered and are anything but left-leaning.

Saying that media has a socialist bias here in Europe would mark you as a raving loon. The left-leaning serious media over here is a minority (but still significant), most serious media has a conservative bent, while sensationalist press is sensationalist press.

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On one hand Fox's editorial/opinion people are strictly on the Republican side of everything. On the other hand I think Shep Smith is the best news anchor on the three cable news networks. Then on someone else's hand Fox & Friends is a thing that exists.

Journalists may be left-leaning, although it's more like "left-leaning" as in they actually pay attention to the facts in a lot of cases.

The sad truth is most journalists don't know enough about the stuff they cover to truly know the facts or call out the bullshit presented as facts.

We live in a society where people born on third base constantly try to steal second, yet we expect people born with two strikes against them to hit a homerun on the first pitch.

Not political, but clearly has no clue of foreign geography - not that many watching would notice.

Yeah, geography is not their strong point.

Figures don't lie, but apparently liars can graph. Note the distances between data points and the distance between dates, to force the graph to look like a steady rise. Here's the graph as it should be:

Awe come yo! There is a great many Conservative thinking people, like myself, and groups that do not like his position, fically speaking. haha I would say that most things in most of our societies is, now more than ever, based on the fical side of things.

The only real difference between fox news and the rest is the side that they are on. I could enumerate all sorts of terribly biased articles (heck just check half the links on this thread) and mistakes that all organizations make. It's all junk and not worth your time to watch.

And Karl Rove is no more republican than say, George Stephanopoulos is a democrat. If that's the criteria we are using, considering the role each play on their respective network, then who owns ABC?

Most news outlets (be they tv or print media) have a position. That has to do with the history behind news to begin with - more prevalent in europe than the US I think though.While journalist, may support one party (or wing) more in general, the message of the news outlet is set by the editorial staff / chief editor / owner (dependant on setup), and it will invarably be more positive to some political positions and more negative towards others. In Europe the political leanings come out more in commentaries thann catual reporting (but that is probably more due to the fact that all the news gets their info from the same 2 or 3 agencies)

For that reason, and to avoid the echo chamber, my primary source of news (political and otherwise) is the most conservative (european usage) newspaper in Denmark, despite definately not being in agreement with their political stance - I know I won't be sugercoated but told what "the opposition" means, though on some issues I am conservative (dictionary usage), and I don't like change just to change (it is usually very inefficient, in my opinion).

Fridmarr wrote:The only real difference between fox news and the rest is the side that they are on.

Living in the UK, I only get to see satellite versions of other country's news channels. But Fox stands out as completely different from the others. In the UK, BBC and Sky News are broadly impartial and objective, as is CNN International. So is Al-Jazera (sp?) and most other channels. Fox really is outrageously biased to the right. I think you have lost perspective if you can't see that.

The only comparator to Fox I can find on my satellite box is a bizarre Iranian TV channel.

If you were talking UK newspapers, then there would be an element of truth in what you say. Other Murdoch owned titles like the Sun are similar animals to Fox. His Times and Sunday Times are better though.

You would think they would have learned from the United 232 crash... unless Pratt & Whitney left the fan blade construction to a foreign subsidiary...Wouldn't be surprised seeing how P&W mentioned that the engine is supposed to cost less than the F-119 engine it was based on, despite being newer and more powerful.

econ21 wrote:Fox really is outrageously biased to the right. I think you have lost perspective if you can't see that.

First of all, I have absolutely no clue how you could have read my post and came to the conclusion that I don't think Fox is biased. However, if you really don't see the other side of that coin, then maybe you're the one with the issue. For goodness sakes, MSNBC gave up even bothering to try to hide it years ago.

We don't get MSNBC in the UK - except maybe an anodyne business channel. You said Fox was no different from the "rest". Is MSNBC the rest? Or is it just one extreme on the opposite side of the spectrum? I can just tell you, from an international perspective, Fox is VERY different from most news broadcasters in terms of the degree of its bias - it's not a matter of the direction.

It's just direction. MSNBC was just the obvious example because they are open about it. There really are only 3 cable news outlets, unless you are also getting our broadcast news outlets, not that they are any better. Though I don't think Fox has one of those.

Paxen, all of the mainstream media is roughly the same. The only media I listen too very much is NPR, at least they give it an honest effort. For the most part though, I read, which is mostly AP/Reuters stuff, so I just verify if I care, but most of that stuff is more field/fact based than spin.

Honestly, most true news stories are just a rehash of those feeds and are the same exact thing even including Fox, it's only when they invite commentary on those stories does it get much different. You get to skip that nonsense for the most part by just reading the news feeds.